Had to pick between a roadside mechanic and a dealership for a busted alternator in the middle of nowhere

I was driving through rural Idaho last summer when my alternator gave out on a two-lane highway. The nearest town was named something like Hope or Faith, population 300. My GPS showed one auto shop run by a guy named Vern and a dealership 60 miles away that would take three days to get the part. I chose Vern because he said he could fix it by dinner time with a used part he pulled from a junkyard truck. He charged me $180 cash, used a socket wrench from the 80s, and the car ran rough for a week after. But it got me home to Boise where my regular mechanic said the work was sloppy but functional. Has anyone else gambled on a backwoods fix and regretted it or gotten lucky?

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elizabethf852d ago

Vern sounds like my guy. Last time I gambled on a backwoods fix I ended up with a radiator hose held together with duct tape and prayers.